Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To wipe, or make clean by wiping; wash away.
- In medicine: To cleanse by lotions, as a wound or ulcer. To purge. See
deterge .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb rare To make clean by wiping; to wipe away; to cleanse; hence, to purge.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From French and Old French absterger or from Medieval Latin abstergēre, present active infinitive of abstergeō ("wipe off or away"); formed from abs- + tergeō ("to wipe off").
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word absterge.
Examples
-
Turks of all sorts, men and women, and all over Greece, and those hot countries; to absterge belike that fulsomeness of sweat, to which they are there subject.
reesetee commented on the word absterge
(archaic) To wipe clean; purify.
November 2, 2007